Legislation

Raise the Wage Act (2015)

S. 1150 H.R. 2150

The Feminist Majority supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and eliminating the tipped minimum wage.

The Raise the Wage Act would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $12 an hour by 2020, giving nearly 38 million workers – about two-thirds of whom are women, and 89 percent of whom are adults over the age of 20 – a pay increase. The raise would be phased in, first to $8 an hour, followed by a $1 annual increase for each of the following five years. After 2020, the federal minimum wage would be indexed to median wage growth.

The Raise the Wage Act would also benefit tipped workers, the majority of whom are women. The current minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour. The Raise the Wage Act would first increase this amount to $3.15 an hour before gradually eliminating the tipped minimum wage altogether. Tipped workers are two times more likely to live in poverty than other workers, and nearly half of all tipped workers receive federal assistance.

By 2020, the Raise the Wage Act would give a well-deserved pay raise to one in three women workers, 37 percent of African American workers, and more than 40 percent of Latina/o workers, benefiting the economy and providing increased economic security to our most vulnerable workers.